


run away with my heart

by astrolesbian



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, bc i wrote it thanksgiving weekend and forgot about it oops, canon divergent as of about ep 48, everyone else is in it too but it's mostly them ngl, it also has a not-so-brief cameo from the moon spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2736329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrolesbian/pseuds/astrolesbian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re looking pretty snazzy yourself,” Korra says, and Asami thinks of the letters she never sent, the ones buried under her mattress in her empty apartment, the ones that have <i>I love you</i> written and crossed out and written again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	run away with my heart

**Author's Note:**

> ((a/n: so i wrote this about 3 weeks before the finale, with no caps and no grammar checks, at about three am, and was too lazy and busy studying to edit it at all. so it sat in my hard drive for weeks until today, when i watched the finale, screamed incoherently, and set to writing ten billion au and non-au fics and editing this one. so some of this is obvs gonna be canon divergent. 
> 
> also: at the time i wrote this, i imagined the spirit vine weapon would be much smaller and more concentrated, sort of like a revolver that kuvira would hold in her hand and aim; keep that in mind.))

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Korra says, and there’s a smile on her face and it’s drawn and tired but it's _real_ , _she's_ real, and Asami stands without thinking about it, and reaches out with both hands.

“Only three years!” she exclaims, and Korra smiles wider, harder, and Asami holds her close. She smells faintly earthy, and it’s unsettling, almost; the girl Asami remembers never stood still long enough to let herself smell like earth.

Three years was not supposed to make this much of a difference.

Asami has told herself that she wouldn’t let it. She’d told herself she’d smile, and give Korra a hug, and be there for her. Recovery must have been hard, after all, and she knew it had taken its toll on Korra, she knew from the letters that Korra had not been able to articulate a year ago and the way she looked sitting in the wheelchair; empty, silent. Getting over something like that must have taken time. And she wants Korra to be well, she really does, of course she does. She wants to help her learn to smile without thinking about it again. She wants to help her get her confidence back. She wants her to go back to the way she was before, and it’s selfish, she knows that; knows that she shouldn’t ask for it.

Korra has changed. Her hair is cropped short and the ornament in it is gone, like people that are banished and on the run do to themselves; leaving all their memories behind because they are not part of any country, not part of anything. Alone. Her face is drawn and tired, like the battles she has fought all by herself out there are enough to break her. Her eyes are tired, too. She looks at Asami like she’s desperate for something familiar, but doesn’t think she deserves it.

Asami hugs her anyway, holds on until Korra melts into it. She wants to hold on forever.

 _You’re so different,_ she wants to say, but Korra seems to already know that, to carry it in her every step; she holds it out like a white flag, like defeat. _Please don’t expect too much of me._ Asami doesn’t know if the message is meant just for her or for everyone that touches Korra, everyone that’s come to Korra expecting the same avatar that used to walk the streets of Republic City getting into trouble for all the right reasons. It would be easier, Asami knows that. For things to go straight back to the way they used to be. But she also knows it would be impossible.

She thought she was ready. But now all she can think of is the letter, all she can think of is Korra’s voice echoing in her head, _I never know what to say, sometimes I worry I’ll never fully recover_. All she can feel was the terror of reading those words and then hearing the news that Korra was gone, missing, the worry like a shot to the chest, how suddenly nothing made sense any longer. How she was so afraid, for that whole time, that Korra had just given up, that she was—

She can’t even think it now, not with Korra smiling, uneasy, hopeful.

“I love your hair,” she says instead, grinning as her heart beats like it’s going to fly out of her chest. She’s nervous and giddy like the teenager she should have been all this time, and Korra reaches for her hair with one hand and blushes a little, like she’s forgotten it’s any different than it ever was.

She looks beautiful, really. She’s grown into her face fully, her cheekbones pushing gently under her skin, and the Earth Kingdom prince notices too. She sees him lean in and ask Mako why he didn’t _say_ he knew the avatar, and Korra smiles at them both politely, and Asami looks away.

She doesn’t know when she started thinking of Korra as beautiful and not just as one of her only friends, but she knows the night when they got the news that Korra was gone, that she wasn’t coming to Republic City, that she wasn’t coming anywhere, she knew _something_ was different.  She had to take stock of the pit in her stomach and the ache in the edges of her eyes that meant she might cry, and take stock of the way she wanted to run out and find her somewhere, where ever she was, and shake her, and ask her why she didn’t come, _why didn’t you trust me_ —

Three years has made too much of a difference, Asami thinks.

Three years has turned Korra beautiful and tired, her eyes warm and her face exhausted, three years has made Asami tired, too; and she simultaneously wants to hold Korra until that shaky look leaves her body and wants to shake her harder and demand an explanation, ask her why she didn’t trust them— _trust me_ —enough to come home. But all she can do is hold her for not nearly long enough and let her go.

“You’re looking pretty snazzy yourself,” Korra says, and Asami thinks of the letters she never sent, the ones buried under her mattress in her empty apartment, the ones that have _I love you_ written and crossed out and written again.

 

 

Later, at dinner, she blurts _you don’t get to tell me what to do when you’ve been gone for three years_ and it feels mean and petty and not like Asami at all, and Korra flinches back and opens her mouth like she’s going to yell, too. Then leans back, and looks away.

Asami hates the words the minute they come out of her mouth, regrets them, but there’s no way to take them back, and they hang there over the table until Mako looks between the two of them.

“What’s going on with you two?” he asks, and Asami bites back any possible answer that might come out of her mouth because she can’t trust herself anymore, not now, not with this. She can’t trust herself to not say something stupid, something like _she left, and I love her, and she left._

The worst part is that Korra has this look on her face, like she almost thinks she deserves it, deserves Asami being mean to her, deserves to have people angry at her.

That just makes Asami feel even more horrible.

 

 

The next day, Korra is standing in the doorway of Asami’s apartment with a look on her face like she’s not sure if she’s welcome, even after everything that happened on the train. Even after the fighting and the hugging and the _just like old times_. Maybe she’s right, Asami thinks, maybe it can’t be like old times. Maybe it should be like these times. Maybe—

Asami sort of wishes she’d remembered to brush her hair this morning. Korra shifts from one foot to the other.

“Hi,” she says, her voice quieter than Asami remembers. “Can I come in?”

Asami moves wordlessly from the door and gestures at the couch, nodding. “Do you want something to drink, or anything?” she asks, smoothing her hands down the front of her skirt, feeling unnecessarily flustered.

“No, it’s okay,” Korra says, and sits, and stares at her hands for a minute. Asami sits, too, and stares at Korra.

The silence is deafening. Somehow in all those months of missing Korra, of missing someone to talk to, she’d forgotten that when she did come back, they wouldn’t be able to just fall into their old patterns.

 _So much is different,_ she wants to say, and she knows it would make Korra laugh, but it wouldn’t really be very funny.

"When did you get this place?" Korra asks, and Asami latches gratefully onto the small talk.

"About two years ago," she says. "I wanted to be closer to work. And my house was so big and empty, I couldn't stand it there anymore. I'm at Air Temple Island a lot, anyway."

Korra nods, and they fall into silence again. Asami wishes she knew what to say, wishes this wasn't so incredibly awkward. 

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Korra says finally, hands twisting on her lap. “Really. I shouldn’t have said that, about your father.”

“It’s okay.” Yesterday she’d wanted an apology, but now it tastes bitter, like biting into a lemon, thinking it was an orange.

“No, I mean it,” she says. “It wasn’t right. I really have been gone a long time, I can’t just act like nothing has happened. I don’t _want_ to act like that. It’s just that—ugh.”

She presses her face into her hands, and Asami tentatively lays one hand on her back, in between her shoulder blades. She can almost feel the flutter of a heartbeat, soft and quick and strong, and Korra lets out a long, slow breath.

“I’m not better yet,” she says, and it’s muffled from being spoken into her empty palms. “I wish I could be. I’ve been trying so hard, Asami, but I _can’t_. What if I never can?”

Asami doesn’t know what to say to that.

Korra is strong. She has always been strong. Not just in a muscle way, either; Korra is strong in a way that is just eternal hope and a look in her eyes that says _I can overcome anything when I try_. It’s a kind of strength that makes you want to be strong, too.

She lost some of that, after what Zaheer said and did to her, after the poison and the loss of her legs and the years it took to get even _some_ of it back. It’s been so long since she’s had hope like she did.

Asami knows she still hurts even as she tries to hide it, that she feels inadequate, that she feels like she can’t possibly be enough for them in this condition. She’s already lost one battle, but she must feel like she’s lost a hundred.

“I don’t know what to do,” Asami says, and her voice cracks, and she wishes she could say anything else, something that wouldn’t make it worse. Something that could fix Korra instead of something that would made her burden heavier.

“I don’t, either,” Korra says, and her hands are shaking, and Asami gently moves her hand from Korra’s back to her side, and wraps both her arms around her, holding on. At least she can do this. At least she can do _something_.

It’s strange, to be set with problems that are this big, that seem so _real_. For the past three years she’s been working hard day and night to build her company back up, and worrying about Korra, and working, and worrying, and now Korra is back and still a little broken and her company is better but still fragile and it feels like she’s on the fringe of both, of either helping Korra stand up again and getting her company back on its feet or losing them both, and it makes her terrified, to think that in the end everything she’s worked for could just be gone. But it makes her even more scared to think that Korra could leave again, leave forever this time.

“When you told me that you were here for me,” Korra says, hesitantly, her head on Asami’s shoulder. “You meant that. Right?”

“Of course,” Asami says, genuinely shocked that Korra might have thought that she wasn’t.

“Even if I’m not the person I was?”

“You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had,” Asami says quietly. “How could I not mean it? I’ll always mean it.”

Korra is silent.

“Do you need to talk?” Asami tries, and Korra shakes her head, breathing out shakily.

“Not yet,” she says. “But sometime.”

She doesn’t say anything else for a while, but after a moment, Asami notices that her shoulder is wet, and Korra’s face is damp from tears.

“Thank you,” Korra says eventually, her voice choked up and hoarse, and Asami nods, and wonders when she started crying, too. She wipes her eyes on her sleeve without Korra noticing. 

 

A few nights later, she sees Korra silhouetted against the sun on the gazebo on Air Temple Island, and looks at the cup of tea she’s just poured for herself, and thinks that Korra seems cold out there.

When she brings her the tea, a soft, genuine smile comes over Korra’s face, and she hops down from her position on the gazebo fence. “You’re so sweet,” she says, and Asami feels warm to her toes, like she’s had a sip of tea herself.

 

“Do you think I’ll be able to do it now?” Korra asks one afternoon, when they’re out buying food for Pema to make dinner with. Mako had offered to come, but Korra had shaken her head almost imperceptibly and Tenzin had made up some excuse on the spot for why Mako should stay. Asami pretended she didn’t notice or mind, but the truth of it is that she is selfishly happy, happy that Korra wants her around but not Mako, happy to be spending time with her at all.

Korra is looking at her with an odd sort of confusion, but not helplessness; her hands clenched tight around the handle of the basket she’s holding.

They’re standing in the middle of a market with two baskets full of food and it’s not the right time to have this conversation, only it is.

“Do what?” Asami says, mostly to stall.

Korra bites her lip. “Fix everything,” she says, after a moment of silence, where it looks like she’s thinking. “Fix the whole thing with Kuvira. Make the Earth Kingdom free again. Be the _Avatar_ again. I don’t know.”

“You’re already the Avatar,” Asami says softly, paying attention to the potatoes they’re supposed to be getting next, but her basket is slipping in her fingers, and Korra looks lost.

“I don’t feel like I am,” she says, her voice hushed, and then shakes her head. “I feel like—”

Asami waits, her hands frozen, holding a single potato in one and the basket in the other, watching as Korra pushes a hand over her hair and sighs.

“Ravaa is back,” she says quietly. “I felt her come back. When I was in the spirit world. She said she was always there. She said I just had to look for her, and I would find her, when I needed her.”

“That’s great!” Asami says, places the potato in the basket, and moves closer to Korra to take her hand, and hold it, aching with the feeling of being trusted with this. Korra smiles faintly.

“I just still don’t know if I’m enough,” she says. “If I’ll ever be enough. Aang saved the whole world when he was twelve. _Twelve_ , Asami. I’m twenty-one and I’m still fighting off something that I should have beaten three years ago.”

“Korra, no,” Asami says, and sets the basket on the ground, reaches for both of Korra’s hands, holds them. Waits until Korra is looking at her, right at her eyes. “That’s not—you learned how to _walk_ again, Korra. You don’t know what that _means_.”

Korra looks at her, confused, but before she can say anything, Asami keeps talking.

“This isn’t a simple thing to overcome. That poison was in you for so long and you didn’t even know, you thought it was gone; you were fighting something horrible all that time without even knowing it, and you were so strong, Korra. These weren’t normal circumstances—the odds were stacked against you from the start and you still beat them, don’t you realize how incredible that is?”

It’s babbling, but she means every word of it.

Korra smiles at the ground, and Asami feels her shoulders relax.

“I guess I do,” Korra says. “But it’s nice to hear people say it, for when I forget, you know?”

“You’re amazing,” Asami says firmly. “I’m so proud that you’re my friend.”

“Yeah?” Korra says, her smile wider, like it used to be.

“Always,” Asami says, and squeezes her hands again.

Korra smiles, and it’s enough.

“Now let’s get the rest on the vegetables. I think Pema said she was making us stew, or something.”

“Sounds delicious,” Korra says, and Asami feels a grin threatening to split her face.

“Hey,” she says, as Korra is turning away to look at the potatoes again, feeling reckless and warm. “Remember when you said you never really had a girlfriend before?”

Korra blinks, and then grins, her cheeks going a little pink. “Yeah?”

“Well,” Asami says, “Me neither. But I’m glad it was you. That’s all.”

Korra looks at her feet again, still grinning.

“Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

 

 

“I still can’t believe she ran away like that,” Mako is saying to Bolin later on after Korra is in bed, and Asami snaps.

“How _dare_ you say she ran away, you don’t even know the kind of pain she was in, she just needed to try to get better, to help herself heal somehow—”

“And you do know?” Mako says, raising one eyebrow. “She _wrote_ to you about it?”

Asami points her eyes to the sky and takes a deep breath, hating him for still holding this grudge; it’s not like she could _control_ who Korra wrote to, and if she feels a tiny, secret bit of happiness that Korra wrote to her, and only her, then that’s her business, not Mako’s.

“Don’t talk about her like she ran away. She didn’t. It wasn’t because she was weak or she couldn’t handle it—she was hurting, Mako, she—”

“I can’t believe she told you this and not us,” Mako mumbles, bitterly, crossing his arms and looking away. “We’re her _friends_ —”

“I’m her friend too,” Asami says, and crosses her arms to match him. “And she didn’t—she only wrote to me once. And all she said was she didn’t know how to talk about what was going on, and she didn’t know—” and her voice catches, and she turns away. “She didn’t know if she was ever going to get better. She was hurting so much, and there was nothing I could do—”

“Why do you care so much?” Mako asks exhaustedly. She doesn’t answer the question, can’t find the words to express it, what Korra means to her. She lets him wonder.

“There was nothing I could do,”  she whispers instead, and wraps her arms around herself, turning away. “She’s my best friend and there was nothing I could do.”

 

Bolin leaves, to be with Opal, to save Opal’s mother and father and brothers, and Korra goes white in the face when they tell her and sits down, shaking her head.

“They can’t do that,” she says. “It’s too—”

 _Too what?_ Asami can see Mako struggling not to ask, and she feels a pang of sympathy. That’s his baby brother, after all. And Bolin might be in his twenties now but he’s still too naive. Maybe they all are.

She sits down next to Korra instead, and makes sure she’s looking her in the eyes. Korra looks confused, as if she’s wondering why she’s so upset. Asami wonders if she doesn’t understand that she’s allowed to be afraid.

“They’re going to be okay,” she says, laying one hand on Korra’s arm. “They have Lin with them, and Lin will keep them safe.”

Korra shakes her head, trying to smile, but it comes out a little wry. “I know it’s okay right now,” she says, “but what if something happens? I should be there, it’s my fault they got into this mess—”

“Opal doesn’t blame you, and neither does Lin, you know that,” Asami says. Mako and Tenzin are standing nearby, exchanging glances at the way the two girls are curved towards each other. Asami staunchly ignores them.

Korra smiles, then, shaky but warm, like she’s trying, and reaches to take Asami’s hands—the first time she’s initiated contact like this. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just worried.”

“She almost killed you from the way it sounded,” Asami says quietly, and Korra makes this laughing, crying noise in the back of her throat, like she doesn’t want to think about it. “You have a right to be worried.”

Korra snorts. “Sounds like you were worried too.”

Asami tries to smile. “What, me, worried? Never.”

 _What would I do if you died_ , she wants to say. _She almost killed you. What would I do if you just died—_

“Ha, ha, sure,” Korra says, mocking her, and Asami laughs.

“Okay, maybe a little worried. But I knew you’d be okay.”

Mako and Tenzin look at each other again. Korra’s still looking at their intertwined hands, seeming thoughtful.

“Thanks,” she says, and doesn’t say anything else, but Asami can read it for what it is— _thank you for believing in me._

 

When Bolin and Opal and Lin come back, Korra is the first one out to meet them, hugging Bolin and then hugging Opal and then looking like she wants to yell at them before hugging them again and laughing.

“You should have said something,” she says, and then gets a stricken look on her face that makes everyone laugh. “Oh, _no_ , I sound like _Tenzin_ , this is horrible.”

The weight on her shoulders has lessened for a moment, and Asami knows it will come back later, when they get the news of Kuvira from the others, but for the moment she just hangs back and watches as she smiles, looking warm; looking free.

Varrick elbows her in the side. “Looks like you’re thinkin’ pretty hard about somethin’, Miss Sato.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and she looks away.

She wants to tell him to go do something horrible to himself, but she can’t bring herself to say anything and interrupt the moment. Varrick has not exactly been horrible lately, and it’s nice to work on engineering with someone who’s as smart as she is.

She settles for saying “worry about yourself, Varrick,” because Zhu Li is back, too, looking straight at him, and he straightens up unconsciously, and he looks at her very seriously for a second, like there’s an equation clicking into place; something scattered everywhere that he suddenly understands.

Asami smiles, in spite of herself.

 

“She’s in the Earth Kingdom capital,” Bolin says. “She’s living in the palace.”

Prince Wu makes a strangled, upset noise. “She’s in my palace?”

They all ignore him.

“She’s got her whole army there.”

Korra looks grim. “How much time do we have?”

“As far as I could tell,” Suyin says quietly, “we have a few days, at most, until they finish the main super-weapon.”

“Then let’s get ready right now,” Korra says. “We need to stop her before she can get any more work done.”

Asami watches her, and her stomach hurts, and Korra gives her a tiny smile that looks forced.

She stops her in the hall before she can go out to Naga, and Korra looks at her in a way that makes her stomach hurt even more, in both a good and bad way.

“Are you sure about this, Korra?” she asks, and Korra nods, looking determined.

“Even if I’m not totally sure,” she says, “I can’t afford to say no, not now. This is bigger than me. This is bigger than just me being ready or not. And anyway,” she smiles then, faint but genuine. “I have you guys now. You’re all gonna be there. And I need you.”

“Yeah?” Asami says, and Korra nods.

“Of course.”

 

When the time comes, they all go together, the way they always have. Asami arms herself with the best tech she has and her electric gloves, and remembers the fighting lessons Mako gave her years ago, the ones Bolin interrupted and Korra corrected. She takes deep breaths and lets them out slowly. They will be fine. They have to be fine.

Korra takes her hand. “It’s okay,” she says. Asami squeezes it, holds on for dear life.

They sit there gripping each other’s hands until they reach the capital.

 

 

Looking back on the fight, Asami remembers the way Korra’s hair flew as she fought, something so small in the scheme of things, but it seemed so important then. So beautiful.

Asami remembers the way the four of them fought like a well oiled machine, even with Varrick and the others hovering around, and how they reached the throne room in one piece, and she caught herself thinking that they all might be okay.

Asami remembers Kuvira standing there with the army behind her, how it seemed like something they couldn’t possibly fight. She remembers the way Korra looked at her, the way her eyes seemed to say _please make it, please keep fighting with me_. She remembers being ready, ready for anything. They all were.

And Asami remembers leaping in front of the spirit vine gun Kuvira was pointing; pushing Korra down and aiming her own electricity-sparking glove at the powerful blast shooting at them, the word no catching and ripping its way out of her throat; Kuvira laughing as lightning burst through Asami's body, ripping her apart. And Korra screamed, and so did Mako and Bolin—twin shouts of _Asami, no!_ ringing out—but all she could hear was Korra. She tried to move, to turn, to help her, but she couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe; everything was fading, and she closed her eyes and felt something faint and blue touching her, pushing and pulling like the tide.

 

She wakes up in the cool darkness of a forest, and knows immediately that it must be the spirit world. She’s never been there before, but once she heard Jinora describe it to her sister and her brother, and she said it was  _like the real world, but not. You know you’re not awake. It’s sort of like a really, really vivid dream. One you can’t wake up from easily. And you can’t manipulate it like a dream, either. It sort of manipulates you._

Out of curiosity, she tests her electric glove, and it doesn’t even make a spark. Either it burned out as she fought Kuvira, or it just doesn’t work here.

So Asami sits down and waits. There isn’t really much else that she can do, now.

It’s gorgeous here; gorgeous in a simple sort of way. Just a tiny bit of light streaming through the trees, casting pretty shadows on the grass. The trees whisper with wind that Asami can’t feel on her skin, and the river moves, but she can barely hear it; like there’s cotton stuffed in her ears.

“Korra,” she calls, after a few minutes. “Are you there?”

No one answers.

“Is _anyone_ here?” she asks, feeling more desperate, and a voice rings out from behind her, startling her enough that she scrambles to her feet.

“I am here, Asami.”

There’s a girl hovering in front of her, glowing with a strange bluish light. She is absolutely beautiful, her skin dark in a complexion matching Korra’s, her hair white as snow. Her eyes are like ice, but only in the color—they are also warm, compassionate. She smiles, and it is sweetly and quietly lovely; not like the sun but like—

The light filtering through the trees is all coming from her. She is the center of it all.

“I know who you are,” Asami says. “You’re the moon spirit.”

The girl nods her head, still smiling that quiet, gentle smile. “I am Yue,” she says. “I am glad that I found you in time.”

It’s on the tip of Asami’s tongue to ask where she is, and how she can get back to them—back to Korra—they _need_ her—but she feels slow here, like being stuck in molasses, like being too calm to worry. She wonders if this is how peace feels. God knows she hasn’t been very peaceful for a long time.

“You saved me,” Asami says, slowly, trying to make sense of it. “Why? Why would you do that?”

The moon spirit chuckles. “I suppose that eventually you all ask that. I will tell you. But sit, it will take a moment.”

Asami sits down again, and the spirit flutters down to sit across from her.

“Long ago, the moon and the ocean spirits made a decision—to live in mortal bodies on the earth, away from the spirit world,” the spirit says. “They appeared as fish, swimming around each other in an eternal dance and keeping the push and pull of the tide. Many thousands of years after this was decided, there was a baby born at the northern water tribe, in the days when the Avatar was still frozen in ice. The baby couldn’t breathe. So the leader of the tribe placed the girl in the lake of the moon and ocean spirits, and begged them for help. They granted the girl life, and her hair turned white as a reminder of their gift.”

Asami had heard the story before, but it’s an old story and a comforting one, so she’s content with listening, for now.

“One day, the fire nation’s armies attacked the northern tribe. They snuck into the lake of the spirits, and struck the mortal body of the moon spirit until it lay dead in the water. The people of the tribe were horrified, and the sky turned red as if the sun was trying but failing to rise.

“In the midst of the panic and the fight, the young girl—who had grown into a young woman—noticed that though the world was shrouded in gray, her eyes were still blue, her skin still brown. She realized that the only life left in the moon was in her, and she waded into the water and took the still body of the moon spirit into her hands, and gave back the gift it had once given her. She became one with the moon, and her spirit was drawn into the spirit world.”

The spirit’s head is bowed, and Asami waits for her to continue.

“I lost so much that night,” the girl says finally, looking up, and Asami can see the young girl in those eyes, not just the age-old spirit. “I lost my father, my mother, my people, everyone I loved. but they still lived on, because of me. It was either I died or we all died, and the answer seemed so simple. But I miss them. And I know that in their living days, they missed me.

“I try to save as many as I can from my own sad fate,” she says. “You are a brave girl, and you would have died. You jumped in front of that girl because her life meant more to you than your own. I did the same thing, once. I loved my people, and I loved my friends. I wanted to save them more than I wanted to save myself.”

“So you saved me because of the sacrifice? Because of what I did?”

The spirit shakes her head. “I saved you because your love was stronger than your fear. I did not live long, Asami. I died young. I never saw what my destiny could have been.”

The spirit reaches her free hand out to touch Asami’s face, and it feels like cool water.

“You are so young, and _alive_ , and your destiny is still waiting. You will not die yet.”

“Have you saved other people like this?” Asami asks, and the spirit nods.

“It has worked every time but once. Once, I failed. And it hurt someone I loved very deeply, and I swore it would never happen again.”

“What happened?” Asami asks, and the spirit’s eyes fill with tears. The grief of the moon is something extraordinary, Asami thinks. She can almost see the glow of her skin dimming.

“There was a woman named Suki, and she died saving her warriors,” the spirit whispers. “I could not save her. I could not spare him more pain. I tried.”

Asami bites her lip, and remembers the men and women who build the Republic, and the only one that ever died young, Suki; the Warrior of Kyoshi, who leaped in front of a sword to save another warrior, younger than her, more inexperienced.

“I only wished to spare him,” the spirit whispers. “I wanted him to be happy.”

Asami doesn’t know what to say, or what that means, really, but she reaches out, and takes the spirit’s translucent hands in hers. Comfort is one of the only things she seems to be able to give, nowadays. (That, and her life, she supposes. Well, almost.)

The spirit smiles tremblingly, after a long, quiet moment, and she raises her head, leaning forward to press a kiss to Asami’s forehead.

“I will not be able to save you again,” she says. “So you must be more careful now. But you must have loved her very much, to do what you did. Live on, and be brave. It is up to you now. And tell them—tell them I tried.”

Asami closes her eyes, and the spirit world fades away.

 

When she opens them again, Korra is asleep next to her, her hair in disarray, breathing softly, shallowly. There’s a cut on her cheek, but she looks generally unharmed.

She doesn’t know where they are, but that doesn’t feel like it matters much. Korra’s alive. She’s safe. That means everything is okay, or it will be eventually.

She turns her head with some difficulty to find Mako and Bolin asleep next to her, too. Bolin is snoring, his head on Mako’s shoulder; their clothes are torn, like they haven’t changed since the fight.

She sees a figure in the door, flickering. She sees a smile, small and lovely like the moon.

 _Thank you,_ she manages to think, and falls back into sleep.

 

When she opens her eyes for the second time, they don’t feel so heavy, but her body does; far too heavy to move. Mako and Bolin are gone. It’s only Korra now, and an old woman—Katara—gently moving water within her to heal her.

“There isn’t much left to heal,” Katara is saying to Korra in a soft voice, her knarled hands moving smoothly. Asami blinks. It’s harder than it used to be to open her eyes again after she closes them.

“What does that mean? She healed by herself somehow?”

There’s pressure on her hand, squeezing, almost too tight.

Katara shakes her head. “I’ve seen this before, but only once, and it was with—”

She cuts herself off, and looks away. Korra’s eyebrows furrow. Asami closes her eyes; they are getting too heavy to hold open.

“With,” Korra prompts, almost angrily, and Katara looks up, startled.

“With Suki,” she says. “An old friend.”

“And what happened to her?” Korra says, like she doesn’t already know; but maybe she doesn’t, who knows.

“She died,” Katara says softly. “My brother—they were engaged. He was never quite the same, after she was gone.”

Korra is quiet, and she squeezes Asami’s hand even tighter, if that’s possible.

“Is Asami going to—” she tries, and it’s as though she can’t get the words out. “She can’t. Can she?”

“I won’t lie to you,” Katara says, matter-of-factly, “it could go either way. She has to want to get well.”

Korra doesn’t say anything.

 _It’s up to you now_ , Yue had said.

Asami tries to clench her hand hard around Korra’s, but only manages a faint squeeze; nothing, really. But korra feels it. She gasps out a breath that makes it sound like she’s been holding it for months.

“Please get better,” she whispers, and Asami vows to.

 

The next time she can process what’s going on around her, it’s Bolin talking.

“So Opal just got back from sorting things out at home, and I really think she’s forgiven me. I’m so happy. The only thing that would make it better is you waking up, so you better do it soon, okay?” He pauses, as though he thinks she’s going to answer. She can’t, but she appreciates it.

“Okay, well, here’s another reason. There’s gonna be no one to run your company if you don’t wake up! And you don’t want Varrick to get it, right? I mean, he’s not so bad, but everyone knows you run that company better than anyone. You’ve got a lot to come back to. And Pema promised to make those sweet rolls you like when you wake up! And—”

He drops his voice to whisper, like someone could be listening in.

“And Korra—she’s really gonna be happy, if you wake up. She’s beating herself up a little. We keep telling her it’s not her fault, but she won’t listen. But she’ll listen to you. Katara says you have to want to get better. But we keep thinking, well, why wouldn’t you want to, you know?”

She wants to nod, but she can’t. It’s infuriating.

“Katara says you might not be able to hear us, but I think you can. So. Just. Hurry up and wake up, okay? We miss you.”

She tries to move anything—a finger, an eyelid—and can’t. It’s like her body is too heavy, like it’s made of lead. She wonders if this is how korra felt with the metal in her veins.

Bolin leaves, but not before kissing her cheek in a brotherly way, and she thinks she feels a tear trickle out of one eye, but she can’t be sure.

 

 

The next time she opens her eyes, it’s just her and Korra, with no one else in the room, and her body doesn’t feel any more heavy than it does when she’s waking up from a particularly deep sleep. Like she doesn’t particularly _want_ to move, but she _can_ , if she chose.

Korra is talking.

“And everyone’s here now, even my dad, and it would be perfect if you could just wake up, Asami—I even went to the prison to see your dad and told him you were sick, in case he got worried, I thought you’d want me to do that. And Mako’s grandma keeps asking for you, she really loves you; she still thinks you and Mako are together no matter how many times he tells her no, isn’t that funny?”

Her voice trembles, and Asami moves her whole head to look directly at her. Korra doesn’t notice, she’s looking at their intertwined hands, biting her lip.

“I can’t believe you did that, you know,” Korra says. “It was really stupid, Asami. I can’t believe you would do something so dumb, I thought you were better than that—I mean, what did you think was gonna happen? You were just gonna get up and walk again? And now you’re hurt and it’s all my fault—”

“It’s not,” Asami says, and it comes out a whisper, her voice hoarse from lack of use. Korra jerks in surprise, and her eyes are red and the bags under them are dark, like she can’t sleep, and Asami smiles. “It’s not your fault.”

“Don’t—” Korra breathes, and she’s shaking, she’s so startled, or maybe so happy, Asami doesn’t know, “don’t you ever do that again, that was _so stupid_ , Asami—”

Korra throws her arms around Asami’s neck and Asami thinks it was worth it, every second.

 

It takes her a while to get better, all the way.

But Korra knows the ins and outs of _better_ by now, and Asami knows too; knows it’s not just being able to walk and talk without feeling exhausted but it’s also being able to sleep without having nightmares, without twitching yourself awake.

Korra finds her in the gazebo one afternoon, and hands her a cup of tea, and Asami laughs at the taste of half-dissolved sugar and milk on her tongue and the way that Korra is repeating something that happened weeks ago, and then Korra puts one hand on Asami’s cheek and kisses her so sweetly that the tea tastes sour after, and Asami thinks maybe this should have already been happening weeks ago.

“I missed you so much when you were gone,” Korra says, and the way she says it is shaky, uncertain, even though Asami has already kissed her back, and smiled against her lips like she meant it. “I missed you so much and I was so scared and you—you _jumped in front of me_ , what was I supposed to _do_ if you died, Asami?”

Asami kisses her again; kisses the uncertainty out of her mouth before she can say anything else. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But you know if you were me, you would have done it.”

“I _know_ ,” Korra grumbles. “That’s exactly why you _shouldn’t_.”

Asami laughs, and laughs, and kisses her again.

 

“I can’t believe the papers are calling you _proof the Avatar is feeling better_ ,” Mako snorts, looking at the day’s newspaper. “That sounds—”

“Weird, and a little creepy,” Bolin says decidedly, and Korra laughs.

“I can’t believe they put the article about Future Industries getting the new line in on that little side corner of the front page, and gave the big slot to this trash,” Korra snorts, and Asami giggles and snatches the paper from Mako.

“ _The Avatar celebrates her victory!_ ” she reads, in a deep voice, and Korra laughs and shoves at her.

“Oh no, please, _stop_ —”

“ _At the crowning ceremony of the new Earth King, Wu, the Avatar stood by proudly as the new king announced his intention to put together a Parliament to assist him with his decisions and help him to understand what his people require. However, many were paying more attention to the Avatar than to the new king, as this is her first public appearance since her infamous accident three years ago—and she appeared not only looking hale and healthy, but with a date! And not just any date—Asami Sato, the young entrepreneur behind the recent rebuilding of the city and of her company, Future industries_ —”

“Come on, Asami,” Korra groans. “Cut it out.”

Asami swings their joined hands together and says nothing, just folds up the paper to keep.

“You know what though, Varrick keeps saying he wants to make a mover of you guys,” Bolin says, and Mako chokes on his coffee.

“For real?” Korra asks, raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Bolin says. “He says you guys have the _just the right amount of tragedy and joy_ , or whatever. He says wants to change some stuff, though.”

“Let him,” Asami says, kissing Korra’s cheek. “He can’t make it any better than the truth.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> korrasami literally captured me from the start of season three and refused to let me go and this is me just spilling all my emotions about these losers onto a word document and hoping it's okay. i honestly canon believe it's canon, and it's literally a canon girl/girl ship with a woc and 2 bi girls, this is what DREAMS are made of, and i'm so happy. expect more. expect a LOT more.
> 
> (it's also me being a little angry about the lack of talk in canon about what happened to suki and making up something sad to have my revenge. apologies.)


End file.
